Saturday, September 27, 2014

For and In Behalf Of: In the Beginning... (Part 1)

Hello friends. So I have recently written a script for a performance piece that I am currently organizing to be staged twice by the end of this year. First, in a scaled down version, at an academic theatre conference in Baltimore. And then again at the University of Maryland towards the end of December. I figured since there are some people who would see this piece if they could but will not be able to, so this is a chance for some to read it. Also, last year I posted part of a paper I wrote on race in The Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. That paper not only helped me get accepted into a summer fellowship program but also resulted in me receiving a graduate student paper award. So feel free to leave comments. It's a script in progress so is subject to change. I would appreciate feedback as I work on it. I will divide it according to scenes, and quite honestly this runs long so scenes will be divided too. But yes, here is the first part for my new script For and In Behalf Of.

Oh and here's the dramatis personae

Allan
A: Male
B: Female
C: Male
D: Female
E: Male
F: Female

For costume design, while Allan should appear in business casual academic conference attire (preferably with a cardigan and tie), all other characters should wear all white. The type of slacks, shirts, skirts, blouses, and dresses Mormons change into at the temple. As they take on various roles, a small add-on like a scarf, tie, or shawl should be sufficient.

For set design, the stage should be bare for the exception of some form of baptismal font at either center/center stage or center and upstage. Either a back wall or large screen should be used for projections.

I. In the Beginning…

[Prelude music fades. House
lights drop. Projection reads: “I. In the Beginning…” Lights rise on two
figures who are both dressed in white clothes]

A: “My son”

B: Says the
Christian father

A: “you should not attend a theatre, for there the
wicked assemble; nor a ball-room, for there the wicked assemble; you should not
be found playing a ball, for the sinner does that.”

B: Hundreds of like admonitions are thus given, and so
we have been thus traditioned; but it is our privilege and our duty to scan all
the works of man from the days of Adam until now, and thereby learn what man
was made for, what he is capable of performing, and how far his wisdom can
reach into the heavens, and to know the evil and the good.

[Light fades on A. A exits]

B: Upon the stage of a theatre can be represented in
character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards;
the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the
greatness of truth.

[Projection reads: “Upon the
stage of a theatre can be represented […] the weakness and follies of man, the
magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth” —Brigham Young, on the
dedication of the Salt Lake Theatre, 1862”]

Allan: I am
card-carrying Mormon; the thing is the card’s expired. I was born of goodly
parents who raised me in Florida and taught me the faith of their parents. My
father blessed me as an infant, giving me the name of his father. My father
baptized me into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was
eight. Dressed in white, we stepped into a font at a church building. He
invoked my name and that of God. “Allan Nathan Davis, having been commissioned
of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Then he buried me in the water.

Four years later, my father placed his hands upon
my head and ordained me, conferring the priesthood, the authority of God. I
followed the plan pretty well: ordained a deacon when I was 12, a teacher when
I was 14, a priest when I was 16, and an elder when I was 18; received my
temple endowment and served a mission when I was 19; hell, I graduated from Brigham
Young University twice by the time I was 25.

But it was all the way back when I turned eight,
I was taught, that a part of me would die: my innocence. Before this age of
accountability, any personal imperfection or mistake was swallowed up in
Christ. But at eight, I would be capable of discerning right from wrong. So I
received one of the most precious gifts God could bestow: agency—the power to
choose. As a child of God, I had already received an amazing gift: my physical
body, something that made me like my Heavenly Father and my Heavenly Mother. I
was alive on Earth to gain a physical body and to learn how to use it, how to
endure it, and how to enjoy it. But at eight, I was given a related gift: the
capacity to choose—the weakness and follies
of man OR the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth. My baptism would be my first chance to
exercise my choice to make a covenant with God.

As my father lowered me into the water, the
innocent child that I was died. I could not breathe and darkness engulfed
everything. But he raised me up and I was born again into a life of
responsibility. Resurrected into agency. It is a ritual that I have seen repeatedly:
siblings, my niece, converts I taught. But throughout my life, I witnessed the
rehearsal of this ceremony most in temples, when Mormon youth stood in proxy
for the dead.

Allan: It’s not a practice without its critics. Mormons take on
the identities of others. They represent others and are baptized for them. This
violates the agency, the convictions, and the cultural memory of the dead. The
wound is significantly poignant when we are discussing those that died for
their religious beliefs. What gives Mormons the right to act in the place of
others against their will?

And yet, at the risk of sounding like an
apologist, I feel it necessary to highlight for Mormons, the baptism does not
destroy agency, but creates it. Unlike most Protestant or Catholic perspectives
on baptism, the event itself is not immediately efficacious. When an infant is
baptized Catholic, in the worldview of the faithful, that child is thenceforth
Catholic. But for Mormons, a person has to choose to accept the work, that
ordinance. In other words, Mormons believe they need to be baptized for others not
to make the dead Mormon, but to give them access to the choice to be Mormon if
they so desire

This is not to dismiss the critique of the
practice, but to emphasize that both sides are speaking in the same language.
Choice. Will. Self-determination. Agency. It’s important to the critics and the
proponents. Both cherish and champion the principle. But what does the ritual
do to the memory of the dead? I still want to and very often do see beauty in a
people that have an impulse to honor and remember the dead. But it makes me
wonder how anything we do to remember the dead alters them for us.

And
like I said, earlier, while I have my card, it’s expired. And lest there be any
confusion I am not speaking metaphorically; the card-carrying activity is not
just a figure of speech. I actually have my card in my wallet if you would like
to see it.

[Allan removes wallet from back pocket and takes out
temple recommend]

Allan: This is my temple recommend. Once upon a time, it
would have let me into any LDS temple in the world. The temple in Orlando,
Florida I grew up going to as a teenager. The iconic granite temple in Salt
Lake City. A more modest one in Medford, Oregon. That’s the one illustrated on
the cover of my recommend holder. Even DC, the one I assume most of you are
familiar with. Visible from the Beltway; it would be that giant white edifice
my roommate refers to as the “Fortress of Solitude.”

[Enter C]

Allan: It’s very simple, really. When one has a recommend,
he or she simply goes inside the temple, approaches a reception desk, and hands
a temple worker his or her card.

[Allan hands C his temple recommend. C who begins to
look it over]

Allan: The temple worker takes the recommend. He scans the
barcode printed on the recommend, like a library card. Come to think of it,
it’s like when I go to research at the Library of Congress.

Allan: I can honestly tell you that of the many times I
went through that routine to get in, it never felt rote. It was a sincere
welcome every time. Entrance into the House of the Lord—a place of contemplation,
of revelation, of peace.

[C exits]

Allan: The recommend lasts for two years, at which point it
needs to be renewed. But it has almost been that long since I have let it
expire. Buried in my wallet, but always with me. When I was a teenager, if I
wanted to go to the temple I had to have an ecclesiastical interview for every
temple trip. This let me get a limited use recommend. Recently, I found one of
these training wheel recommends.

[Allan pulls out paper recommend]

Allan: It’s flimsier. The other recommend permitted access
to the entire temple, allowing me to participate in all of the ceremonies that
take place there: the initiatories which includes washings and anointings; the
endowment which is a lengthy ceremony built around an allegorical dramatization
of the story of Adam and Eve; and then sealings where couples and families can
be bound together as a family unit for eternity. This one, however, only allows
teenagers or recent converts to go into the basement level of the temples to
participate in the baptisms for the dead.

It’s
some nice architectural symbolism: the baptismal font is subterranean, buried
in the earth like those it is designed to serve. And these fonts, they are
pretty large, usually elevated and stationed on top of the backs of twelve oxen-shaped
statues. I’ve taken some poetic license. Each ox represents one of the twelve
tribes of Israel and they face the four corners of the world to signify the
gathering of Israel, the entire human family, on both sides of the veil of
death.

[Enter A, B, C, D, E and F. C enters the font. A and E
stand upstage from font, one on each side. D and F both stand upstage center of
the font, holding towels. B waits to enter font.]

Allan: When Mormon
teenagers arrive, they go downstairs and change into white clothes. They sit on
the edge of the font to wait their turn. It is a space of reverence, of
stillness. If there are conversations, they are generally whispered, covered by
the sound of splashing water. There are four adult men and two or three adult
women present. Of the men, one officiates the baptism, one serves as a record
keeper, and the last two serve as witnesses to make sure all goes correctly
with each baptism. If something goes wrong—a missed word or a stray toe popping
out of the water—the ordinance is repeated. The women stand to help the proxies
into and out of the font, providing towels to dry off.

[B gets into font with assistance of D]

Allan: When it is your turn as proxy, as you enter the
water, the person performing the baptism usually asks for a confirmation of
your last name.

C: Sister O’Brian, right?

B: Yeah.

Allan: The baptizer places the proxy’s left hand on his
left forearm and their right hand in his left hand. One hand for support for
when it’s time to be pulled out of the water and one hand primed to hold your
nose. The baptizer then raises his right hand to the square, and says:

C: Sister O’Brian, having been commissioned of Jesus
Christ, I baptize you for and in behalf of…

Allan: He would then read the name of a deceased individual
that’s projected on a little screen in front of him. Something like…

C: Jane Doe, who is dead, in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

[C baptizes B. A and E approve of ritual]

Allan: This is repeated another eight or twelve times. It
depends on how many people came on the temple trip and if someone had been
doing family history recently.

[F and D help C and B dry off. All exit.]

Allan: When I was home recently, I attended the funeral of a
friend. I noticed a lot of things. I had spent my summer writing this piece
about what any of us do with the memories of our dead loved ones. And in my
mind that meant dealing with my grandparents. But I woke up one morning in
July, rolled over in the dark, and checked my email on my phone. Before I
understood what was going on, I was reading a message from my friend Cory.
Emma, his sister-in-law, the wife of one of my best friends in college had
died. Emma was 26 years old, pregnant with her second child. She wasn’t
elderly, battling a disease, or a victim of an accident. Her heart just
stopped. And it just doesn’t make sense.

When I attended Emma’s memorial services, I noticed how much we bring
stories to the dead. Stories of their lives. And stories about a much larger
cosmology. At Emma’s services, there was an ecclesiastical leader who shared
remarks about the plan of salvation: what Mormons see as God’s restored
explanation of where we all come from, why we are here, where we are going, and
in terms of something like a funeral some sense of why unexplainable shit
happens or how you deal with it. I have trouble believing the literality of the
story, but you know what? It’s a beautiful vision of humanity, of God, of life.
Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy. The story is
healing. Stories and memories of our dead loved ones—it’s what we do.

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